Keep Your Eyes Open
by weissofthecorax
Summary: 7 reasons to live, and infinite more / A collection of broken hearts fumbling their way back together. FrankyxRobin & a healthy dose of nakamaship. Warning: Spoilers from Enies Lobby up to the New World.
1. Smile

***POST-TIME SKIP SPOILERS***

* * *

**Smile**

* * *

Grove 17 is quiet save for the soft murmur of rising resin bubbles and the softer squish of the mossy ground under her shoes.

The Thousand Sunny is even quieter, bobbing on the ocean's whispered _shush shush_. There's not a scratch to be found on the ship, and every surface glistens with Rayleigh's expert coating, the sunny figurehead smiling its gentle expectance.

"Sunny," Robin says, returning the ship's smile with a tender curve of her own as a pleasant warmth squeezes her chest. She's waited for this day for two years and now she's here, just steps away from home. "We made you wait... two long years. I'm glad you're safe."

Safe, and not as vacant as she thought, she discovers as a familiar spirited voice hollers a catcall, "_OWWww!_ Look at that beautiful woman over there!

"_You're - _" A burly man bounds across the Sunny's lawn, sunlight flashing on dark sunglasses and vibrant metal, and springs onto the gunwale facing her perch on the Yarukiman Mangrove root, " - our _Suuuper_ Archaeologist," he bends a knee and strikes a pose, slamming his bulky forearms together with a heavy _clank_ to flourish his trademark star, "_Robin, aren't you?!_"

She stares a moment, absorbing the details. Though his muscular body borders on _hulking_ and he's more robot than human now, his torso lined with surgical scars, his legs reinforced with metal, his _arms - _well, but Robin can recognize that posture anywhere, that shameless display, that wide toothy grin under protruding metal nose, that rowdy lilting voice - she misses the pompadour, but there's no doubt in her mind that the man waiting for her reply is her Cyborg Franky.

Her small smile unfurls like a bloom, dimpling her cheeks with a grin. "You haven't changed a bit, Franky," she says with a bright titter of mirth.

"Oh, I've changed, alright!" Franky exclaims, holding his showy stance. "Just look at this body. I'm the stuff dreams are made of! Behold the greatest transformation of all time. I'm beyond human comprehension!"

Robin laughs outright, again taking in the monstrous red shoulders, blocky blue forearms and massive robotic hands - contrasting with the comparatively _normal _floral print shirt that hangs open on his burly torso.

"Well, you are certainly right about that," she rejoins, beaming as Franky flexes his strange body for her, "I don't know _what_ you are."

"You mean I'm a pervert? _OWww, _that's sweet!"

Robin chuckles.

_It's good to be home._

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week:** Day 1

**Originally posted:** April 8th, 2013

**Prompt:** Smile

**Words:** 405


	2. I'm here

***POST-TIME SKIP***

* * *

**I'm here**

* * *

It happens so fast he wonders if he imagined it - for one second - no, for not _even_ a full second, as the cannonball explosions rock the cove and the fiery gusts toss her hair and glint like hellfire in her sunglasses, Robin spins away, curls into his back - he hears the cry, so small under the thundering booms, feels her fingers grasping the back of his shirt - before she whips back again, crosses her arms, and sprouts two gigantic legs on the nearest offending battleship, stomping it into oblivion before the Marines know what's hit them.

It's a split second, but Franky knows; it may have been only an hour or two or three on that Sea Train, but it was a lifetime to them, an eternity of tug-of-war - so when he catches a glimpse of her face, in that heartbeat, the gritted teeth, the strain around her eyes, the panic in their dark depths, he knows.

And even after they've left the fleet miles behind and the crew has shared details and three cheers for _everyone's_ individual victories, Franky sees the strain in her smile, the haunting behind her eyes.

Franky can't help but wonder, because tonight is _her_ shift in the crow's nest, and usually she accepts Sanji's insistent offer to take her place, but today she declines every offer with a show of polite amusement.

It's not that she wants to be alone tonight-whether she's chatting with Nami, tickling Chopper, playing hand games with Luffy, or beating Zoro at chess, she stays in the center of the rowdy celebration throughout the afternoon. No, Franky can imagine the scenes burning behind those dusky eyes, scenes of skies aflame with screaming thunder, of earth turning over, of lives lost and paralyzing impotence -

Franky can imagine that Ohara still haunts her dreams, because the Puffing Tom still haunts his, after all, charging down the line with his only father worth loving. The strangest things set them off: a high screeching whistle, of course, but sometimes just the smell of burning coal, or even simply the coppery sting of blood on his tongue, and his dreams flood with the chugging rush, the smack and thud of high-speed collision - that instant of resistance - flesh and muscle and bone versus plowing steel - before the worst, that sinking darkness of failure, of powerlessness, as the ocean engulfs his broken body...

So Franky knows: it's not that she wants to be alone tonight, but rather that she does not want to sleep - does not want to dream.

While everyone else gathers in the dining hall for Sanji's celebratory feast, Franky pulls Usopp aside and borrows some materials, then climbs to the crow's nest.

The photographs are as random as they come - the majority of them courtesy of Luffy's haphazard skills, most crooked, some blurred, a few even upside-down, but a number of more recent shots are clearly taken by their resident sharpshooter and developed with expert care.

The one thing this motley collection has in common is Robin and her squinty-eyed soft smile - as she compliments a squirming Chopper, thanks a preening Sanji, exchanges whispered secrets with Nami, or just plain stares into space, grinning as she listens to or watches the antics of her out-of-frame family.

Family. Nakama. Franky spreads the photos out on the floor of the crow's nest. Robin's deepest wish, everywhere he looks. His eyes sting and his nose is dripping - he snuffles and blinks the imminent tears away.

He's got work to do.

He strings the photos together, grouping them by shipmate, and works his way around the room, window to window, arranging them in mobiles. She'll arrive to a lookout with curtains drawn - and when she pulls them back so she can do her duty, she'll find the reminders she needs.

That's all she needs, he knows, as he makes his way down the ladder to riotous hails for him to join the crew - _his family, too - _for dinner.

Not to be alone, not to share her thoughts.

Just a reminder. _This is your family. We love you. We'll protect you. You're not alone._

_I'm here._

And if she sits at his window the most, he'll be sure not to notice.

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week:** Day 2

**Originally posted: **April 9th, 2013

**Prompt:** I'm here

**Words: **710


	3. Shame

***MID-ENIES LOBBY***

* * *

**Shame**

* * *

That humiliation and distress, of knowing he's done wrong, is a feeling Franky has known since his broken infancy - first, floundering through an ocean of _I'm just a nuisance _and _I'm not worth anyone's love, _dragging the leaden weight of abandonment, and then, finally beached, crawling through trash under the gravity of _I'm good for nothing _and _I only get in the way - _and then, again, riddled with the bullets of _Tom-san is dead because of me_ and _Everything I do hurts the people I love_.

He can tell that Nico Robin feels that same gravity, so heavy that her knees shake and her tears flood forth - maybe, first, when Nico Olvia left her, that thought that _I'm not smart enough_, and then, bullied and alienated, _I can never be like them_ and _I'll never be good enough_, and whatever can an abandoned child of eight do but strive to prove her greatness? He knows that weight, too. But even then it was _I'm not strong enough_ as her friends and family fell before her eyes, leaving her yet again, with nothing but dying dreams to live for, and then, growing stronger, smiling that fake smile, _I can never laugh because I'm happy_ and _I am too cursed to be loved._

He can see the weight of her shame, in the tightening hunch of her shoulders, in the audible grind of her teeth, building and breaking, threatening to crush her down into pieces, as she fights to block out the Straw Hat's challenge.

"**_Bring it on!_**"

Under the blazing flag, her mouth falls open with a sob and she looks across to the Straw Hats, lined up, feet braced, arms crossed or fists clenched, faces stern, hearts steady - across the void and a lifetime of space, bridged only by the Straw Hat's roar.

"_Robin! I still haven't heard it from your lips!_"

She closes her eyes, turns her face as if the act of not looking can close her ears to her captain's command.

"**_Say you want to live!_**_"_

For an instant that stretches into eternity, Nico Robin looks like she's going to crumble where she stands, her eyes fly wide and the tears tumble anew down her face - Franky can see the shame flashing across her face, _I can't live in this world_, the refusal on the tip of her tongue, _My very existence is a sin!_ Even though he's _fought _to tell her, to tell _himself_, _It's never a sin to just exist! _

But the words never fly, as her lips tremble and the revelation dawns in her streaming eyes - _I can live?!_

And Franky _sees_ the shame shatter before the thoughts, _They want me_,_ I am cursed but _**_they want me_** and, _They wish it! _**_It's really okay! - _**her teeth grind but the pain etched on her face is different now, not the agony of denial, but the stinging burning pain of looking into a too-bright light when you have lived in only darkness, but wanting to see beyond it, to the other side - and _she_ sees the other side, finally, her mouth opening for the words just out of reach: _I can live!_

Nico Robin rears up out of the void, standing tall, as much a flaming bird as the smoldering flag above, the shackles of her shame breaking off as she screams,

"**_I want to live! _**_Take me... back to the sea with you!_"

And her soaring will and the thundering battle cries of the Straw Hats give Franky the strength he needs, to reach within and grasp that most vile curse of his broken family, to draw it out and raise it up and look that monster of his past in the face - remembering _As long as we're in danger of that woman Nico Robin reactivating the weapon... that blueprint must exist in this world, as an opposing force!_

He holds the blueprints out.

"She has friends who will protect her!" he shouts over the protesting CP9 chief. "That's why I'm going to make a wager!"

_Tom-san... If I'm to fulfill your wish in this situation... there's only one thing to do!_

He lifts the blueprints high overhead, and torches them into oblivion.

_They are no longer needed, after all_.

"I'm gonna bet on the Straw Hat!"

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week:** Day 3

**Originally posted:** April 10th, 2013

**Prompt:** Shame

**Words:** 716


	4. Unexpected

***POST-TIME SKIP***

* * *

**Unexpected**

* * *

It's not quite dawn but it's snowing. How could she ever forget that muted shush, brief as her time as a slave was, on that frozen hell that was Tequila Wolf? When she slides out of bed, the cold nips at her exposed skin, sending a shiver down her spine to her curling toes - reminding her too well of the bite of winter, of ice on her bare arms and sooty slush in her broken shoes.

Gooseflesh rises all up and down her arms. She pulls a robe on over her nightdress, tying it snugly and flipping up the fuzzy collar to block out the chill, like the act alone can push Tequila Wolf, the frostbitten feet, the bleeding hands, the crying children, out of her mind.

She thinks about the Thousand Sunny instead, and the expert hands that crafted her. A smile tugs at her lips at the thought of the shipwright's hands - large and bulky they may be, but nimble in their art - hands that had pulled her from the darkness that had almost snatched her away, from the family she had, finally, after all those lonely years, found.

Of course Franky insulated the ship well beyond anything she thought possible, but a ship will always have a draft, somewhere, somehow - and she's been on enough ships to know...

Robin frowns. Where _are_ her thoughts today? She turns to wake Nami; sharing a warm beverage with her friend will surely cheer her.

But when she looks across to Nami's bed, it's already vacant.

She can't say she's surprised. Nami is a navigator without peer, and after two years of studying weather on a sky island, of course she must have sensed the change in air pressure, the drop in temperature, long before any of them. As it should be.

Robin slips her feet into her wooly slippers and opens the door. She's greeted by a stiff gust of frigid air that makes her shudder even under the thick fleece robe, and by an eery silence - the usual echoey hush of snow absorbing sound, of course, but also a marked lack of activity. No rowdy gamboling, no snowman-making, not even a snowball fight. Not a single squeal nor even a giggle to be heard throughout the whole snow-blanketed ship.

Robin stands in the doorway and puffs a few breaths out, watches the steam rise above her head, up into the desultory downward spiral of snowflakes, so tiny and gossamer upon her outstretched palms. Observing the evanescent flakes as they melt into her skin, she wonders if the boys - _no, they are men now, really - _have frozen to death in their hammocks. She makes a mental note to request a space heater from Franky, if he's survived, and maybe some extras for the men, though she's sure they wouldn't notice the cold even if their toes froze off.

She steps out, the unbroken shroud of powder by her doorway crunching under her slippers, and shuts the bedroom door behind her. _Crunch crunch crunch _all the way to the stairs, but there she pauses to stare at the deep bank of snow that has turned the lawn into a miniature sea of scintillating powdered _death_.

The two trees on the other side of the lawn are engulfed all the way up to their branches. The men will be fortunate to even escape their quarters, if they haven't frozen, though they all seem to be born under lucky stars and she doesn't doubt that Luffy or Zoro will fight their way out like bears digging themselves out of hibernation.

She almost laughs at the image of the two roaring as they barge through the snowdrift, but _she_ has no intention to plow her way through chest-deep powder. Instead, she crosses her arms, sprouts a row of arms from the side of the gunwale, and hops across to the afterdeck.

There's a light on in the kitchen and Robin hopes Sanji has a pot of coffee brewing, because she needs a hot mug before she withers up in this bitterness -

_Withers_. Oh, _her flowers_. She changes course, sprouting a string of arms from the outer wall of the dining hall. She clasps the proffered hand and tries to ignore the chilly wind that cuts under her robe as the arms pull her to the upper deck.

Her legs sink into three feet of snow. Her feet are instantly, irrevocably frozen, and she grits her teeth against the icy knives stabbing her bare legs and crosses her arms for a third time. There's no time for delicacy or mercy, not with her slippers soaking and her feet sure to fall off; an efflorescence of arms erupts from beneath the snow, hundreds of limbs surging up together into two long legs.

She stomps the snow out of her way, a narrow smile on her lips. She hears dishes rattle in the kitchen below, and a curse, muffled but vehement.

She hopes nothing broke. It would be terrible if Sanji cuts himself with a knife and bleeds to death while their doctor sleeps soundly behind a snow bank.

She'll be glad if she never sees a speck of snow again in her life.

She strides down the cleared path, past Usopp's covered pop greens bed, to her... flowerbed? There's an odd glass structure where her flowerbed is supposed to be.

As she draws nearer, though, her lips part around a breathy laugh - there is a _greenhouse_ around her flowerbed, a little glass bungalow shielding her garden from these vile elements. She crouches before it and presses a chilled hand to a wavy translucent panel. There are lamps set in the ceiling and the light gives off a glowing heat like a cozy inglenook seat.

There's a little ribbon bow sitting on the roof - newly placed, if the light dusting of snowflakes is any indication.

"Robin!"

She looks up to answer Franky's ebullient call, but bites back her greeting with a chuckle (Robin _does not_ snort) because the cyborg walks out of the library_,_ his hulking body plowing through the snowdrifts without effort to her side,_ wearing a sleeveless jacket._

_And no pants._

Robin stares, then lowers her eyelids, fluttering her lashes against her cheeks for just long enough to decide if this is reasonable snow attire.

For Franky, of course it is.

"Your coat is quite dashing with that speedo," she says by way of greeting, hiding a broadening smile behind a hand when she sees the deep flush in his face.

It is not the reddening of windburn.

"Why, it _is_ pretty _Suuuper_, isn't it?" He yanks up the wooly collar of the jacket and strikes a pose, all bare legs and clanking metal arms. Robin wonders if he even has cold receptors in his skin.

"This is your work, am I correct?" She gestures to the greenhouse, and his face glows scarlet again.

"_OWww, _that's right. _Surprise!_ _Suuuper Happy Birthday, Robin!_"

Robin stares for a moment, he has so far overshot her expectations. "Birthday?" she echoes, her eyebrows drawing together.

Franky kneels down beside her, but even kneeling his bulk shields her from the falling snow. "Right, I had a hard time deciding what to get you, but when Nami warned me about the weather shift, I _knew - _Robin... ? What's with that _un_-super face? You didn't think we'd forget, did you?" He grins that broad toothy grin, a little unsure around the edges.

Robin blinks, and finds that there are tears on her eyelashes. Franky goes from unsure to panicked in a heartbeat. "I'm sorry, Robin, it's not super at all, is it, I should have made something el - "

"Franky," she interrupts, a broken laugh tripping out with his name.

No, she could never have thought they would forget her birthday. _Never. _Because _she_ had forgotten, and all those twenty-eight years flash before her eyes, lonely years, lonely birthdays - not days to celebrate her birth, but days to _curse_ it. Why would _anyone_ want to celebrate the life of a demon child?

But _Franky_. Those hands, those massive unwieldy hands are poised to embrace her should any tears fall.

"Please," she says, allowing a grin to break the mask hiding the turmoil within. "This is quite super enough."

His whole face brightens and now even his ears are glowing. "Then you like it? Are you sure you're alright?"

"I love it," she promises, pressing her hand to the glass again. "My flowers are safe. It's perfect."

Franky practically beams. She wonders if his circuitry will malfunction if he blushes enough, but she doesn't get the chance to find out. The hatch to the dining hall slams open and Nami pokes her head up.

"Robin!" she calls, her face lighting up when she sees Robin. "Happy Birth - " She squeals suddenly, as a hand stretches up and shoves her over. Luffy's head pops up next to the struggling navigator.

"Ro~bin!" he howls. Below, in the kitchen, she hears the others, hollering for her: "Robin!" "Robin-chwaaan~!" "Robin-san!" "_Robin! _Come in out of the cold!"

The men, _her _men, her _family_.

Nami elbows Luffy in the face. "Robin, come on down. We have coffee ready for you and breakfast is almost done. Sanji-kun even made coffee cake!"

Who would want to celebrate _her_ life?

"And presents!" Luffy shouts, or tries to, his voice muffled by Nami's elbow in his cheek.

"Presents!" Chopper's squeak chimes in from below.

_Everyone_.

Robin's eyes sting and it's difficult to breathe, but somehow she manages to laugh as Franky scoops her up to sit her on his shoulder. She wraps her arms around his head, careful not to muss his special crane-styled hairdo.

Nami and Luffy grin up at her as their cyborg carries her to the hatchway, their enthusiastic cheers mingling,

"_Happy Birthday!_"

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week:** Day 4

**Originally posted:** April 11th, 2013

**Prompt:** Unexpected

**Words:** 1,643


	5. Touch

***POST-TIME SKIP***

* * *

**Touch**

* * *

Luffy declares it Hide & Seek Day and _everyone_ has to participate, no exceptions, Captain's Orders.

The only protests come from Zoro and Sanji, but their mutterings about _pride_ and _self-respect_ (and the shoving war they start, when the swordsman voices his doubt that the cook _has any_) are lost under Usopp's boisterous "Yeah yeah!" and Chopper's ecstatic squeals. Franky shouts that it's a _Suuuper_ idea and Brook can't seem to stop _Yohoho_ing at Zoro and Sanji long enough chip in with his usual skull joke.

Nami stomps a heel three times like a gavel to silence the _enthusiastic_ commotion and Robin hides her smile behind a hand as the navigator grabs Luffy and Zoro both by their collars and demands that all _three_ of the monster trio _swear_ on their weekly allowances for the _whole year_ that they _will not under any circumstances_ use Kenbunshoku Haki to cheat as Seekers.

All three of the men swear it, fast as the words can trip off their tongues, though Sanji promises it on his eternal love while Luffy crosses his scarred chest like he might ward himself against demons, and Zoro sweats - no doubt he's more concerned about his burgeoning debt than his dwindling allowance.

But when they draw straws, it is none of the monster trio, but Franky who holds up the red-tipped Seeker's straw.

As always, the cyborg jumps headlong into the spirit. He throws himself down on the lawn with a clank and starts counting in a loud, mechanical voice, "Commence Seeking in T Minus 100... 99... 98..." Luffy and Chopper run off screeching their delight, and Usopp slinks off to the hidden Goan Cannon room at the prow. Nami pointedlyclaims the observation tower for herself and, in perfect hearing range of all those present, adds with a honeyed nonchalance that _she wanted a bath anyway _and anyone _boneheaded_ enough to find her _will _pay_._

Sanji twirls after Nami, puffing a trail of smoky hearts and looking all too ready to pay up, Seeker or not. Zoro trudges after them, though, muttering about _self-respect _and its apparent aversion to _curly brows_ (_"What did you say, you shitty marimo!"_), and the shoving match is renewed with all its vigor, until they reach the stairs, at which point the swordsman wanders off in another direction, as he is wont to do.

Any victory in _this_ crew's game is certain to be pyrrhic, and Robin chuckles as she imagines someone being thrown overboard. She only wonders who it will be.

Brook must be a master at hiding, or else as lost as Zoro, for he has vanished from view while she was occupied with her thoughts and she is the last of the assemblage standing on the lawn. She peers down at Franky, their cyborg shipwright and currently the largest member of the crew, towering, really, even over Brook - but as he lies prone on the lawn, counting "45... 44... 43..." in that slow, robotic monotone, with his face tucked in the folds of his massive arms and his feet swinging through the air like a child's...

He presents a fetching sight indeed.

She hurries off before he can catch her smothered tittering. As she tiptoes through the aquarium room, she hears Chopper's giggles slipping through the hatch of the service elevator. A clever hideaway for one so small, but it will be of little use if he gives himself away.

He'll make a lovely distraction, though.

Robin pads down the few steps to the hallway behind the tank and lets herself out onto the starboard balcony. She tucks herself down into the corner, away from the window, and smiles to herself because she can hear _everything_ from here and Franky is just finishing his countdown.

"... 2... 1. Seeking _Suuuper _commenced!" the cyborg proclaims, dropping the monotone in favor of his usual flamboyance. Robin bites her lip, closes her eyes, and folds her arms.

Up on the deck, a brown eye blooms from the outer wall of the aquarium bar. She watches Franky as he rubs his prominent chin, looking about the ship for some clue to where his nakama are hiding.

Every time he decides on a direction to search, Robin diverts his attention with a touch - just small brushes at first, a tap on the shoulder, a knock on the back of his head. Then, when he laughs at the ghostly contact, searching for the fugitive culprit: a pat on the back, a tickle over his ribs...

He's barely made it four feet in any direction on the lawn, turning this way and that, reaching for the fleeting hands, though she's careful to disperse them before he catches her.

Franky pauses his dizzying dance and huffs, but he's laughing, too. Robin can feel herself grinning, but she keeps her senses focused on Franky, sprouting yet another arm from between his shoulder blades, smoothing long fingers up the back of his neck to cup the curve of his occipital bone, probably one of the few _human_ bones remaining in his body.

For a moment, Franky stops laughing and the ship is hushed. He lets his head fall back, leaning the substantial weight of his skull into her caress.

Her grin softens. Another hand flowers, from his shoulder this time, certainly within grasping range - but Franky doesn't move as her fingers brush across his thick neck, and Robin meanders her way to his jaw, grazing the long ridge of surgical scarring, stroking the dense muttonchop whiskers, her thumb fondling the shell of his ear as her fingers caress his cheek and the heavy line of his jaw.

She savors the hum of his circuitry firing, the churning of his gears, quiet but distinct under her fingertips and that so-very-thin layer of artificial skin.

Franky sighs and says, "Robin, I'm not making a very super Seeker like this."

Down on the balcony, she chuckles and releases him, gives him a firm smack on his vulnerable rear and grins at his yelp.

He needn't have worried about finding someone, though - no sooner has the cry left his lips than a shout rises from elsewhere. From the kitchen, she discovers, eyes opening above the dining hall's door, where Sanji is giving Luffy - and everyone else on the ship - an earful for choosing _his fully stocked, methodically ordered pantry_ as a hiding place.

No doubt their insatiable captain worked up an appetite giggling and ate his way through half their stores. Robin spares a thought for who will die first if they exhaust the provisions before the next island.

It will be messy regardless.

Sanji is positively livid and Franky catches them both easily because they're too busy wrestling on the dining table to run for new hideaways.

He sends Luffy to check all the first and second level rooms for the others, and a fuming Sanji to the ship's bowels to hunt the doubtless disoriented swordsman ("_Why the fuck does _Luffy_ get to look for the Ladies!"_).

From her eye's secret perch, she watches Luffy race off across the lawn to the women's quarters. Sanji pitches another fit, but Franky is the Seeker, after all, and has the final word, so the grumbling cook trudges off to check the Soldier Dock system for _that shitty wandering marimo_.

When she rolls her eye back to the dining hall, Franky has disappeared. Robin blinks and scours the room again, but his hulking form has nowhere to hide. Did he slip by her somehow?

She opens another eye outside, checking the lawn for him, then the second level deck, but he is nowhere to be found. She listens instead, sure she'll hear the telltale clank of metal somewhere above.

So focused is she on the world overhead, Robin doesn't hear him until he laughs from the balcony doorway, startling her back to herself.

"Found you!" he declares, flashing that broad toothy grin at her. She presses a hand to her thudding heart and purses her lips at him as he ducks through the door to crouch at her feet. "Well, c'mon, we have pirates to find."

She thinks about the way his gears churned under her hands and smiles a slow, narrow curve. Revenge can be sweet after all.

"I have a more serendipitous plan," she says. Franky is already on edge, his widening eyes on her lips while his mouth can't decide if it should grin approval or drop open with terror.

His heavy hands fidget between them, pushing air enough that she feels her skirt rustle in its wake. She can almost _see_ the gears churning, and she hasn't even touched him yet. Finally, his cheeks flushing, he stutters, "But w-_we_ still have half the crew to find."

Robin lets her smile broaden, but before she can speak, Luffy gallops across the deck overhead, sandals clapping the planks as he streaks fore-to-aft, screaming at the top of his lungs, "_Come out~ come out~ wherever you are~!_" all the way to the stern. Hinges squeal in protest as he throws open a heavy door - the ladder hatch, to the observation tower - and Luffy hollers, "_Guys~ where~ are~ you~!"_ before diving into the hatch.

The door slams behind him, solid and final.

_Oh, dear_. She hopes that Nami won't castrate him. It would be terrible for him to lose his manhood at such a young age, and before he even becomes Pirate King.

"See, now," she says to Franky, "Luffy is quite capable of finding the others on his own, isn't he?"

Franky is still staring at the ceiling, as if the strength of his horrified stare alone can pull the boy back down the hatch to safety.

"I better go get him, Nami'll _super _ki - ah!" he yelps again as hands shove him forward, so he has no choice but to kneel over her or _crush_ her. He doesn't want the latter, though - he even keeps his arms up, like he's afraid to touch her.

_That's quite acceptable, though. _

Robin rises up on her knees as well - he's still taller, but a boost up makes the reach around his neck simple as sliding a book from a shelf. Franky's breath hitches as she encircles him and she can feel his heart whirring against her own chest as her fingers - her real fingers this time - cradle the curve of his skull.

_She has more than enough hands for the two of them._

Still, his vast hand scoops her up, metal fingers firm and oddly _not-cold _against her backside, lifting her closer, snugger, and that's even more advantageous.

Their lips are centimeters apart when Nami's screech cuts through the halcyon summer haze - followed, naturally, by Luffy's roaring laughter.

_Yes, Luffy will do quite splendidly on his own._

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week: **Day 5

**Originally posted:** April 12th, 2013

**Prompt: **Touch

**Words:** 1,805


	6. Understand

***POST-TIME SKIP***

* * *

**Understand**

* * *

Hers is a family that understands.

Her captain, with his intuitive awareness of heavy hearts and melancholia, always ready with a diverting new clapping game or a novel combination to add to their ever-growing secret handshake.

_Ro~bin~! If you laugh you'll be happy!_

Her swordsman, never trusting her with his own back but always there to cover hers, on the ship or in battle, his katana not so much _whistling_ as _howling_ to fell her foes, even before she comprehends the danger - and, sometimes, even when she has more than enough hands of her own.

_Idiot, you don't have to fight by yourself anymore._

Her navigator, her confidant, _the sister she never believed she would find, _in the dead of night lifting the covers for her, no questions asked - or, if she cannot escape the nightmare's snare herself, sliding in next to her, arms a warm firm reminder.

_Shh, shh, you are not alone._

Her sniper king, a riveting tale always on the tip of his tireless silver tongue when she needs a distraction the most: tales of perilous journeys, of damsels shackled in towers of phantom justice and the tenacious courage required to brave the obstacles ahead.

_Robin! Have faith in us!_

Her cook, even after two years apart, still so acutely attuned to her sleeping patterns as to have a pot of coffee already brewing and a heaping plate of oven-fresh coffee cake for her with an ample side of idle chatter, when she sidles in hours before dawn.

_Robin-chwaan~ You'll never go hungry another day so long as I live!_

Her doctor, ever attentive, never a word needed for him to know when she requires a little something extra to drift off at night - some nights, no more than a warm mug of his excellent tea sends her nodding off to the land of dreams; other nights she needs a pill or two, carefully concocted and placed in her hand with nothing but a murmured instruction. Still other nights, all she wants is his wooly company to read beside, until one or the other of them drops off to sleep.

_Robin! I'll keep even your heart in good health!_

Her musician, invariably materializing from the dusky mantle of a lonely watch night to fill the hushed air with sweet silvery ballads.

_Robin-san! One must also remember to nourish the soul! Yohoho!_

Ah, but _Franky_, always with his greetings, "Robin! _Suuuper good morning to you!"_ or "Don't _you_ look super this morning!" or, her personal favorite, "Robin! Aren't you a _Suuuuper _sight for sore eyes~!" after a particularly late night in the workshop, with inflamed eyes and grease spots on his face and shirt.

It's not the words he speaks that set him apart from the others, but the reminders woven between them. _Isn't it Suuuper to be alive today? _That broad toothy grin, _I told you so!_

_Live, Robin!_

_I'm super glad you chose the sea._

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week:** Day 6

**Originally posted: **April 13th, 2013

**Prompt:** Understand

**Words: **498


	7. Mamihlapinatapei

***POST-THRILLER BARK / PRE-SABAODY***

* * *

**Mamihlapinatapei**

* * *

"Oh my. Will she be alright?"

Franky bangs his head on the Mini Merry II's elevated hull. "_Ow! _Is that my super archaeologist?" He hears her chuckle. Of course it is; the question is habit, though his heart thumps a little harder when he realizes his gaffe. He clears his suddenly tight throat and smoothes a hand up his pompadour as he rolls himself out from under the small boat.

Robin stands in the doorway of his workshop, a stack of bentos balanced in her arms, an extra hand sprouted from each to carry two sweating bottles of cola and what looks like a thermos of coffee. "Will she sink on her next voyage?"

Franky raises an eyebrow, but Robin's face is a mask of polite interest - just the tiniest twitch of a smile at the corners of her mouth as she adds, "After the incident on Thriller Bark, it would be most unfortunate if we were to drown when it founders."

"Hey now, don't say such unlucky things in my workshop!" He pats the Merry's side. "I'll have her _Suuuper_ tiptop in no time, don't you worry!"

"That's reassuring." Robin steps into the workshop and crosses to set down her load on his cluttered bench. She's wearing one of Nami's skirts, just above knee-length and pleated, so that every small movement makes it twirl and flare against her long fair thighs.

"I brought you lunch."

"Uh?" Franky straightens on his mechanic's creeper, as much stunned at being caught staring as he is by a few misfiring circuits. His face is suddenly warm. "Oh, _super_, I was just getting hungry, too." His mouth is watering but it's not for the food.

He swallows.

Robin turns her head to look at him over her shoulder, a sideways glance, dark eyes through dark lowered lashes. "How timely. Sanji packed quite a lot for you." A small laugh escapes her, more of a breath than anything, as she takes up one of the bentos, an electric blue one, and holds it out for him. "I believe this is his very sincere apology for injuring our dear Little Lamb."

He rolls closer and her fingers are small and delicate and vaseline-smooth under his for just a moment before they slide away and he remembers that they are lethal weapons.

_Not against him, though_.

_Never again against her family._

"He better be _super_ sorry for what he did," he says, setting the bento box on the creeper and lifting the lid. The lunch packed inside smells like a greasy slice of heaven - and scrawled in ketchup across his pile of crispy fries, in the _littlest _font possible, is _Sorry_. "It's not _completely_ his fault," he adds, feeling a pang of pity for the cook, "Though he _should_ have known better than to let Luffy steer. Even if the dummy _was_ trying to eat the groceries."

His hamburger is heaped with extra cheese and bacon. Franky sighs. "I'll let him know the Merry will be super alright, that'll ease his mind. Thanks for bringing this down."

He lifts his gaze to grin at her, expecting her to return to the deck, but she stands there staring back, hands clasped behind her and rocking a little on her heels, that gently amused smile on her lips.

Then she smoothes her skirt against her legs and sits on his bench, between the other bento and his toolbox. She crosses those long legs at the ankles and hooks a heel on a bench rung, her skirt hitching just one inch, maybe _two_, baring a soft pale expanse of thigh before she rights it with an unselfconscious brush - still smiling and perfectly at home among the clutter.

Franky can't breathe. He can feel his gears overheating as they churn a little too fast.

_The other bento._

_She brought her own lunch too_.

She passes him a cola, and they eat their lunches in a mutual silence. When they do talk, it's idle chatter: about how good it was to leave Thriller Bark behind, and how mysterious, that Kuma the Tyrant left without finishing any of them (_to which Robin only smiles, a slow but wide, secret smile)_; about the round rainbow they saw the other day; about what they're each most excited to see at Fishman Island (_Franky can't wait to find Tom-san's brother, and Robin is sure there will be a Poneglyph_).

Their lunches are long eaten and still Robin stays, and with her dark watchful eyes on him, Franky finds himself reluctant to return to his work. Their conversation peters out, though, and there's a moment of silence, _awkward _this time. Robin unhooks her heel from the rung and swings her legs free, actually _fidgeting. _She leans forward, and Franky finds himself leaning, too, and there's a charge in the air that he feels across all his circuits. Her lips part as if to speak, and he wants to say something, too, _anything_, or maybe even - _maybe even - _but neither of them say a word.

_A heartbeat, two, three, and maybe he's afraid to mess this up like everything before..._

Then there's a crash of stampeding feet and voices raised in shouts loud enough to reach them in the bowels of the ship. They both look up as Luffy's bellow resounds from above,

"_We're finally here! We made it!_

_"This is the Red Line!"_

Franky grins at Robin, and without a word they both jump up to join their crew.

_-x-_

**Furanky's Tumblr Frobin Week: **Day 7

**Originally posted:** April 14th, 2013

**Prompt:** Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego; doesn't have direct translation to english): The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start.

**Words:** 915

_(A/n) - And that's it, folks! If you want to continue following this story, I may add more Frobin one-shots at some point, if the itch returns~ Thanks for reading!_


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